KOSOVO:

Special Balkan envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin traveled to Beijing after the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and joined China in a call for an immediate halt to the NATO air campaign. Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev presented Armenia, Belarus and other friendly countries with a plan to put together a Kosovo peacekeeping force made up of members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the loose association of former Soviet republics. NATO insists on no halt to the bombing without a Yugoslav withdrawal from Kosovo, and an international security force with NATO at its core. The joint statement that Russia and the Group of Seven rich industrial countries signed with great fanfare two weeks ago seems right now to be a triumph of doublespeak over candor.